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By Anjan Roy
As the petrol and diesel prices are creeping up almost day by day, the general public is wondering what is happening. Politicians are shouting hoarse and demanding a government hand in checking the rise. Everyone is saying the petroleum products price hike will at the next stage spill over the rest of the economy and all other prices will also go up.
On the other hand, the food items’ prices are also inching up. More than the food grains, it I the vegetables and fruits and protein prices which are showing a greater than normal spurt. So, there is the common man agitated and debating if these are government failures.
There are the others as well who get agitated whenever there are movements in the prices. It is their business to do so.
A sudden spurt in inflation print in May has set economists arguing if this was a transient phase or the inflation pressure was likely to take full grip in the forthcoming months.
The latest figures indicate that the retail inflation in May has spiked to 6.3 per cent and the wholesale price index shot up by over 12 per cent. The Reserve Bank takes the retail inflation measure as the benchmark for settling its monetary policy.
Two weeks back, the Reserve Bank in its bi-monthly review kept the policy interest rate unchanged, stating that the recovery process in the economy needs support from all sides. For six consecutive reviews the RBI has stayed away from raising interest rates to encourage growth.
The question that is being debated now is what price for growth. Is inflation control right away is the right policy or whether the current spike in inflation rates are a transitory phenomenon needing some indulgence from policy makers. Is it time to take some initial measures to rein in “inflationary expectation” right in the beginning.
An examination of the disaggregated inflation measures show that the current spate of rising price index is mainly due to a sharp spikes in food and fuel prices.
Fuel prices increase is mainly on account of the global rise in oil prices in response to the recovery of major economies. After falling consistently for months, the oil pries are once again northbound mainly from higher demand from China, India and Western Europe.
At one point of time, oil price had touched $40 for a barrel which is now creeping above $70. Oil market experts believe that prices should keep creeping up with supply side uncertainty. Saudi Arabia, world’s largest producer, had checked its oil output to keep the market high.
But, the international price spurt apart, fuel price in the domestic market is the end result of huge imposts both from the centre and the state governments. Neither petrol nor diesel are included in the GST and as a result, the states are clamping large doses of tax on petroleum products.
Asked to lower the state dues, these government point out that the centre has put cess on petrol which it would not have to share with the states. All cess hikes go exclusively to the centre and the states are left high and dry.
Where do the states generate their additional resources, when the expenses on their count were rising in the aftermath of the outbreak of the pandemic, the states have pointed out. The states have sacrifice 70 per cent of their revenues as these have been subsumed in consolidated GST structure.
As for food prices, there are those who argue that the sudden increases in food items’ prices are due to supply bottlenecks. The transport and distribution networks have been badly disrupted in the covid lock down periods.
As a result there are pockets of sharp prices hikes combined with price falls in production centres. Therefore, these prices should tend to even out and the food price inflation should moderate once the supply side linkages once again pick up with infection rates easing.
Additionally, the monsoon prospects are bright with meteorological predictions placing normal rainfall this season. It is likely that the country will end up with another season of large foodgrains crops and comfortable supplies of fruits and vegetables.
One had to recognise the fact that these are genuinely difficult times and the economy has been devastated by the pandemic now entering its second year. What is worse, the repeated and intermittent lock downs and closure of activities has affected economic activity and income generation. Employment has shrunk. Regenerating employment is the first requirement which can increase overall demand.
We can do little about the price of petroleum products and the best would be to accept the oil price hike and plan accordingly. High prices of these products should eventually help in reconditioning the economy to adjust to using smaller quantities of the imported oils.
The food prices should eventually taper off to a secular level once the supply disruptions go and markets start functioning. Large buffer stocks should be released whenever there are price spurts and farm infrastructure building announced last year should also help in containing wastage.
For the sake of letting the Indian economy recover from devastating effects of the pandemic since last year, it is good wisdom to tolerate a bit of price hikes and yet let the process of recovery unhampered. (IPA Service)


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Konnichiwa from Tokyo and our third annual AMP Conf! More than 500 developers are joining us over the next 2 days to hear from 50 speakers about how they’ve used AMP, what they’ve learned, and what’s coming next. With over 850 code contributors to the project and billions of AMP websites, the AMP team is more motivated than ever to build towards our vision of a strong user-first open web forever. And with a new governance model announced last year, leading voices across the web will ensure the project aims to meet the needs of both developers and users.
AMP means great user experiences on the web
What’s in a name? When AMP started more than 3 years ago, Accelerated Mobile Pages fit pretty well. But AMP isn’t just accelerating webpage experiences anymore – it’s drives an overall superior user experience across the web. And mobile phones are just one of a myriad of supported devices AMP runs on, including desktop and tablets. Plus with immersive stories, dynamic emails, and better ads we are well beyond our original pages name.
Moving forward, The AMP Project will just be known as AMP – no acronym necessary, just a word that signifies speed and a great user experience across the web. You’ll see this reflected in our newly launched home for all things AMP, amp.dev, where you’ll learn all there is to know about the types of experiences developers are using AMP to build.
With documentation sections for websites, stories, emails and ads, developers can find what they need quickly. And we’ve strengthened the site’s resources as well, both importing the templates and examples that previously lived on ampbyexample.com and ampstart.com, and providing new assets like a use cases section with downloadable demos showcasing what’s possible with AMP.
Making AMP more capable
Additionally, AMP is now taking advantage of another web technology called web packaging that allows publishers to get the instant loading of AMP from their own domain. We’ve heard the feedback that AMP URLs from Google Search can be confusing or problematic, and last year began working on using signed exchanges to address this issue. We’re now excited to announce that Signed Exchange support is launching in Google Search, available to all users of browsers that support the new technology (currently Chromium-based browsers) and all websites that serve signed exchanges. This means you can now get instant loading for AMP on your own domain! See more details in this Google Webmaster Blog post or visit Cloudflare who recently announced that they are offering signed exchanges to all of its customers free of charge via a new product called AMP Real URL.
AMP as a Service
One of the differentiating features of AMP is that every day hundreds of open source contributors and dozens of full time engineers are working on making AMP better. In fact, because the AMP team and the open source community are constantly working on improvements that are shipped to all AMP pages via a CDN multiple times a month, you can think of “AMP as a Service”, modeled after the concept of software as a service.
This includes ways in which AMP is always improving your site directly with elements like image lightbox with swipe dismissal as default for many images, as well as a blurry image placeholder as an upgraded experience for images that take longer to load. Additionally AMP provides best-in-class and easy-to-integrate features like input masking, video docking or infinite scrolling for lists. And finally, we’re introducing a one-line ServiceWorker, an auto-configuring ServiceWorker that turns any AMP page into a PWA. It is preconfigured for AMP, so that it does all the right things for network resilience and improved speed out of the box, and like everything in AMP will become better over time.
Driving ROI with Speed
We realize AMP’s vision is rooted in supporting the long term success of publishers and advertisers across the web. To this end we’ve seen strong recent success with AMPHTML ads, ads that are built with the underlying technology used on AMP pages. In particular, So-net, a Japanese DSP, has seen huge decreases in Ad Load time which resulted in major ad metrics improvements, such as a 34% CTR improvement. And leading Spanish newspaper EL PAÍS in partnership with Volkswagen ran an experiment combining AMP pages, AMPHTML ads and AMP landing pages, resulting in a sizable 76% conversion uplift. In other words, when AMP ensured the user-experience was great, each acquisition was 43% cheaper!
Online merchants are critical to the health and success of the web. Shopify, a platform that powers over 800,000 online businesses, supports AMP with their apps platform. Six of these apps, installed by more than 20.000 stores to date, provide great AMP versions of the Shopify storefront. Check out the full review of these Shopify apps in a recent blogpost.
We announced a developer preview for AMP Stories at last year’s AMP Conf. Stories are a new medium that was truly born on mobile, allowing users to have a visual content experience that feels native to their phone. And while many users experience story content within apps, we’ve spent much of the last year building out the capabilities of the AMP Stories format to take advantage of what is unique about a story product for the open web. With AMP stories, publishers own their content, completely control the monetization, and design and distribute the content exactly as they like. Over the last year, we’ve seen many publishers create engaging content in the format. This week Washington Post contributor Lorenzo Tugnoli was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for his rich and riveting photographs capturing the human toll of war in Yemen, which appeared in the paper as an AMP Story. The AMP Story presentation was so visually striking that it was submitted to the Pulitzer committee as the official document showcasing the photographs.
Over the past year, we’ve added many new features like page attachments, sidebars, and more robust support for a desktop experience. And story ads, with upcoming programmatic support as well as support for affiliate links provide greater monetization flexibility.
We also recognize that most creators of AMP Stories will prefer to use tools to create their stories rather than hand code them. We’re excited by the set of robust tools that are emerging. This includes MakeStories, an end-to-end WYSIWYG editor for making stories, that is now live to everyone at makestories.io for free this week. Additionally Unfold, one of the top story creation tools with 17M downloads is integrating AMP Stories support as part of a new premium version of their product that will launch in June. And a new AMP plugin for WordPress is launching today in beta with a built-in WYSIWYG editor for AMP Stories. In the near future the stable version will enable all users of the AMP plugin to create their own stories with no additional plugin installation.
Ensuring great stories are visible and accessible is also a high priority for platforms like Google, which announced today that it is creating a dedicated block for Visual Stories on search result pages. Google is starting with story content in the travel space and plans to launch additional blocks for gaming, movies, TV, fashion, and more.
Finally, we announced AMP for email at AMP Conf last year to bring the power of interactivity to email, and the format is now live and ready for business. AMP for email enables email senders to create dynamic, interactive content within an email, opening up a new world of possibilities without a user needing to leave their inbox. Dynamic mail was made available to Gmail and G Suite users recently, and we are excited to share that Mail.ru is exiting their beta and launching to all users this week. In addition, the AMP for email spec has engagement from other major email providers around the world including Yahoo Mail and Outlook.com. As each of these providers launches support, senders will scale the reach of their AMP emails to users. And early adopters of AMP for email like OYO, India’s largest hospitality company, saw a 60% conversion lift for visitors coming via AMP emails since launch.
AMP has evolved well beyond its first step to help publishers speed up their content sites. With major improvements to make the library capable across websites, stories, ads and emails, AMP aims to empower developers to create great experiences across the web. The AMP team is as excited as we were on day one and remain committed to working towards our vision of a user-first open web forever.
Posted by Malte Ubl, Technical Steering Committee, AMP

domain: news


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|Bid||237.47 x 800|
|Ask||237.58 x 800|
|Day's Range||231.08 - 237.73|
|52 Week Range||224.43 - 368.83|
|Beta (3Y Monthly)||1.34|
|PE Ratio (TTM)||20.12|
|Earnings Date||Dec 5, 2019|
|Forward Dividend & Yield||N/A (N/A)|
|1y Target Est||289.37|
Guggenheim says shares of the cosmetics and skin-care retailer have declined too much. On Tuesday, Guggenheim analyst Steven Forbes reiterated a Buy rating on Ulta, although he lowered his price target by $25, to $300. Ulta was up 1.4% to $238.43 in morning trading.
Coty (COTY) gains on advancements in its Luxury business and e-commerce platform. However, sluggishness in the Consumer and Professional Beauty segment is a worry.
Shake Shack, Ulta Beauty, Delta, American and Southwest highlighted as Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day
Low leasing velocity and negative net absorption in the Manhattan office market will likely have negatively impacted SL Green Realty's (SLG) Q3 results.
Legendary investors such as Jeffrey Talpins and Seth Klarman earn enormous amounts of money for themselves and their investors by doing in-depth research on small-cap stocks that big brokerage houses don't publish. Small cap stocks -especially when they are screened well- can generate substantial outperformance versus a boring index fund. That's why we analyze the […]
The U.S. prestige beauty industry is booming, but teens are spending significantly less on beauty products, according to a new survey from Piper Jaffray.
Conventional wisdom says that insiders and 10% owners really only buy shares of a company for one reason -- they believe the stock price will rise and they want to profit from it. An Immunomedics, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMMU) director and an executive each stepped up to the buy window this past week. The company released positive trial data at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Annual Congress.
Ulta Beauty stock is down 24% since the company announced lower-than-expected Q2 results in late August. Jim Cramer suggests buying ULTA stock.
Jim Cramer took a closer look during Thursday's Mad Money program at Ulta Beauty , which suffered a brutal decline, to see if there's an opportunity in the name. When ULTA reported earnings in late August, not many investors were prepared for the 30% one-day decline that it suffered.
Ulta Beauty Inc (NASDAQ: ULTA ) shares were trading higher Tuesday after a company director purchased approximately $87 million worth of shares in a series of recent transactions. An SEC Form 4 filing ...
The Chanel group is now the sixth largest owner of Ulta, with a 3.4% stake in the cosmetics company, whose market is millennial women.
Investing.com - Cosmetics company Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA) rose in midday trade on Tuesday after news that a director had snapped up hundreds of thousands of shares of the company.
Investors who take an interest in Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) should definitely note that the CEO & Director...


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Earlier today IDG and InfoWorld’s management announced the closure of InfoWorld’s print publication in order to focus our colleagues energies on the distribution of IT information via online and events. The last edition of InfoWorld will be 2nd April.
InfoWorld has spent the last few years aggressively pushing in non-print directions resulting in us being in a place where the InfoWorld brand will thrive for many years to come.
Recently InfoWorld’s revenue has been predominantly driven by its online and events business. Print no longer is the major product line at InfoWorld. So while the closure of a 27-year print publication is somewhat newsworthy, it is also a natural step in a plan that was put in place 2 years ago.
This move was discussed extensively with all our key marketers who keenly support InfoWorld’s strategy. The reality is that high-tech marketers are rapidly shifting their marketing investment to online and events, while they choose fewer print publications.
There is a definite "flight to quality" as advertisers select fewer brands. IDG has a number of leading brands and these are doing relatively well in print. In the future these print publications will evolve and adjust with the times in terms of design, trim size, and circulation but through all these future changes, we will continue to keep our eyes focused on the needs of readers and advertisers.
There are observations from InfoWorld's Editor in Chief, Steve Fox and from Virginia Hines, General Manager of InfoWorld's Online initiatives.
Some external blog commentary on InfoWorld’s move can be found at Dave Winer’s Scripting News and at Forbes on Tech Plus Matt McAlister’s Blog. Matt, an ex-InfoWorld staffer, is a good friend and colleague and his piece is overall very positive on the changes, but there is one comment with which I strongly disagree.
“IDG has been a deer in the headlights of the Internet 18-wheeler for years. “
Just not true. Over the last few years IDG’s management has pursued a determined and well thought through approach to change our organization.
Pat McGovern, IDG’s Chairman has been reinforcing IDG’s web centric approach, especially around the engagement of our communities. Most recently in an interview with Forbes.
Bob Carrigan, President of IDG Communications has publicly articulated our strategy on numerous occasions
And I've written extensively about IDG's transformation to an organization that is web centric which now has 35% of its US revenues coming from digital sources .
Print advertising has been declining for years and will likely continue to decline. However, despite the downturn in print advertising, IDG is coming off of one of the best years in its history. Why? Because we are executing well on a strategy that we have been talking about publicly and openly now for some time:
We are managing print for profit as we push aggressively into non-print businesses such as online and events including our mobile test with mDog
The sheer size of our non-print businesses is testament to the strengths of our brands and our online strategy.
I’m the first to admit we are on a long journey and there is still much to be done to realize this vision. It’s not easy for organizations to fundamentally change from their legacy roots. Paul Conley documents some of the internal training and issues with which we are dealing.
While it's hard sometimes to face reality and to deal with massive change, the mark of true leadership is to provide the strategy and vision for growth; to take our organization through these turbulent market shifts with compassion and understanding for those directly impacted.
Sam Whitemore summed it up well in his article:
Like all IDG titles, InfoWorld for years has been working on a print-to-online transition. The title’s big moneymakers are events and online. InfoWorld has several online projects unfolding – InfoClipz animations, podcasts and video, careers and the IT Exec-Connect community – all of which now stand to gain higher budgets without print in the picture. IDG’s decision should not affect the river of news flowing to InfoWorld.com from the IDG News Service. For tech PR pros, this news does mean that “pitching a story” is increasingly vestigial language. PR should accept online tech content in all its variety, and develop new ways to serve the decision-makers they wish to influence.
Scott Karp observes
… if InfoWorld can make the transition from print publishing to online publishing without going out of business, without diminishing its value to readers, and without laying off a lot of people, it will prove to the rest of the publishing industry that folding the print publication does not mean folding the business.
Today is a historic one for IDG and I’m proud to be a member of a company that is taking such bold steps as part of a continuing strategy to transform our organization.
Howard Sholkin, IDG's Director of Corporate Communications who can be contacted at email@example.com (617) 239-7882 will handle requests for additional information.


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MUSIC lovers across the Vale and Cotswolds will be saddened by the sudden closure of Evesham’s independent record shop Rapture.
It was one of the last independent music shops in the county, and won plaudits for its customer service.
Owner Gary Smith is angry about circumstances that he believes brought about the downfall of the business.
He describes the handling of the Abbey Bridge closure as a fiasco, and criticises local planning policies controlling supermarket developments.
We sympathise with Mr Smith and his staff. The bridge closure extended long beyond the 10-week period initially promised, and was a blow for many businesses in Evesham.
But there are other factors at play here. Over 90 per cent of the UK’s independent record shops have shut in the last 25 years, and their decline is continuing at a higher rate than independent shops overall.
Traditional high streets in towns such as Evesham face tough times too.
Excluding central London, high street footfall in the UK has fallen by about 10 per cent in the last three years, while the number of town centre stores fell by almost 15,000 between 2000 and 2009.
Change is inevitable, but the outlook is not all gloomy.
The Abbey Bridge debacle has galvanised the town. Initiatives have sprung up to support local traders, including this newspaper’s Grow In Evesham campaign.
There is a renewed focus on the challenges that lie ahead, and that can only stand us in good stead.


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A Google job listing looks like further proof that it's cooking up an answer to the iPhone inside Motorola Mobility, underscoring Larry Page's recent comments that the search giant bought the Libertyville-based company for more than its patents.
The ad later was tweaked from X-phone to 'next-generation' smartphone platform. But it's looks like confirmation of the Wall Street Journal report of the X-phone.
It's one more indication of the intense interest and speculation about what Google intends to do with Motorola as we close in on the one-year anniversary of the deal. Motorola's top design executive, Jim Wicks, would only hint at what's ahead when I spoke with him a month ago. Here's what he had to say.


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AI News, Teleoperating robots with virtual reality: Making it easier for factory workers to telecommute
- On 5. juni 2018
- By Read More
Teleoperating robots with virtual reality: Making it easier for factory workers to telecommute
The system embeds the user in a VR control room with multiple sensor displays, making it feel like they are inside the robot's head.
'A system like this could eventually help humans supervise robots from a distance,' says CSAIL postdoctoral associate Jeffrey Lipton, who was lead author on a related paper about the system.
The system mimics the 'homunculus model of mind' -- the idea that there's a small human inside our brains controlling our actions, viewing the images we see and understanding them for us.
While it's a peculiar idea for humans, for robots it fits: 'inside' the robot is a human in a control room, seeing through its eyes and controlling its actions.
Using Oculus' controllers, users can interact with controls that appear in the virtual space to open and close the hand grippers to pick up, move, and retrieve items.
To make these movements possible, the human's space is mapped into the virtual space, and the virtual space is then mapped into the robot space to provide a sense of co-location.
(The human brain does the rest by automatically inferring the 3-D information.) To test the system, the team first teleoperated Baxter to do simple tasks like picking up screws or stapling wires.
Tested against state-of-the-art systems, CSAIL's system was better at grasping objects 95 percent of the time and 57 percent faster at doing tasks.
- On 10. juli 2020
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According to the New York Times Microsoft is trying to persuade Sony not to resist an agreement between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. Microsoft reportedly offered Sony a 10-year deal on Call of Duty games on November 11, 2022, to which Sony simply did not respond.
Moreover, according to the New York Times, Sony seems to be going around the regulators of different countries and using the Call of Duty series as leverage, trying to convince them to recognize the agreement between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard as illegal.
Microsoft, for its part, is trying to prove to regulators that the deal mostly concerns mobile games, where Microsoft is lagging behind, especially against the backdrop of some Chinese Tencent. The merger with Activision will seemingly give the company the tools it needs to bring Xbox games to a whole new audience of players on smartphones and tablets. As a reminder, 50% of the gaming market, namely $92.2 billion goes to mobile games.
Sony, on the other hand, continues to complain that Microsoft already has a “history” of “dominance” in various industries, while at the same time claiming that “player choice will disappear”, without explaining exactly what kind of choice it is. By dominance, Sony obviously means the market for operating systems and browsers, which, ironically enough, Microsoft hasn’t dominated for a long time.
It is clear that Sony is not actually concerned with Call of Duty, whose business model is focused precisely on making the game available on all platforms. The Japanese gaming giant is worried about the Xbox Game Pass, which for $10 a month gives players access to many games, including Call of Duty, while Sony itself is focused on selling each game for the full amount of $70 dollars. The choice of players who are already used to subscriptions to streaming services is understandable.
Therefore, Sony is not commenting on Microsoft’s proposal for Call of Duty, it is literally their last trump card, which they continue to brandish in front of the regulators. A real Mexican melodrama!


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KESA, the electricals retailer that owns Comet, returned to profit in the first half of its financial year, with stronger sales mirroring recent improved performances by rivals Currys and PC World.
Kesa reported a £6m pre-tax profit for the six months to the end of October, a big turnaround from the £103.8m loss in the same period last year.
Like-for-like sales rose two per cent at 251 Comet stores while group sales were down 2.2 per cent overall highlighting the quicker pace of recovery in the UK compared to Europe where Kesa owns the Darty brand.
Against a weak result in the first half of 2008, revenues grew 7.6 per cent in constant currency terms to £2.35bn.
Kesa chief executive Thierry Falque-Pierrotin said: “The outlook for the second half of the year remains uncertain but our businesses are prepared and well positioned for the more significant peak trading period.”
Products that have sold well over the past six months include coffee machines, laptops, iPhones and widescreen televisions.
Kesa said it had taken market share from competitors in a market that fell four per cent overall.
Kesa’s main rival DSG International, the owner of Currys and PC World, has also recently reported better trading.
However, sales figures across the industry are now being helped by easier comparisons with last year.
Kesa has cut Comet 300 staff at Comet as part of a cost savings drive. The next phase will see the electricals retailer roll out of more smaller format stores.


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TSMC was last week reported to be starting mass production of 3nm silicon in September, with products based on the node from early 2023
When Intel delayed its orders, it made TSMC think twice about expansion and scaling back capex plans for 2023 but now sounds like things might be getting back on track for 3nm mass production: at least that’s what TSMC is telling investors. A lot rides on Apple deploying the 3nm silicon for its 2023 and 2024 product plans. TSMC’s new nodes usually launched in Spring, so the later launch will have its impacts.
Although Tom’s Hardware states Apple is likely to be TSMC’s first N3 customer, it seems likely that Apple’s iPhone 14 – due to be launched this week – will not contain the latest technology from TSMC.
But the benefits of the migration are clear: N3 versus N5 (5nm) – apart from its more dense logic (1.6X), it offers 10 to 15% improvements in performance and reduced power consumption over 25%. TSMC is already planning its next evolution – not a node change, but a tweak of the 3nm process (N3E).
The benefits of migration are not limited to developments at the bleeding edge. When it detailed plans for 3nm last year, TSMC was also rethinking its highest volume mixed-signal process (28nm – called N28), shifting it to N16FFC (16nm) with significant gains of up to 25%.
As specialists in IP reuse, Thalia helps mixed-signal companies plan for their migration to new nodes or different process technologies. We help to simplify and speed the migration, reducing their time to market and eliminating costly interruptions in the supply of their most important product lines.


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Kindle Fire HD 2 Release Date On Sept. 2013 [VIDEO]; Specs For Tablet Include Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 Processor, Wi-fi And 3G Connectivity, 8MP Rear Camera, Full HD Experience
By Staff Writer | August 30, 2013 11:53 AM EDT
The potential rivals of Amazon's latest release will be Google's Nexus 7 and Apple's iPad mini. It will be beneficial should Amazon release a new version of the Kindle Paperwhite e-reader, that was released last September 2012 which featured a new illuminated screen.
The current Amazon Kindle Fire HD matches the nexus 7 in price and hardware and unquestionably trumps over the iPad mini in its price and monitor resolution.
Kindles are earning the top spot according to a study last April 2013, new Kindle owners are not only purchasing more books, they are even getting printed versions of the books they downloaded. In UK 8 million people owns a kindle, and 22% of total tablet sales in the US is attributed to the Kindle Fire.
The Kindle Fire HD 2 is expected to be released on September 2013, just in time for the holidays.
The price of the Kindle Fire HD 2 is just USD199 and offers a 7-inch HD display and a 1.2Ghz dual-core CPU. At this price point it ensures value for money of its owners.
AMAZON Kindle Fire HD 7" (Video Courtesy: DetroitBORG via YouTube)
If you are still hesitant to purchase the Kindle Fire HD 2, its Qualcomm quad core Snapdragon 800 processor, should be enough to give you the push and finally purchase Amazon's latest tablet with an added Adreno 330 graphics chip. The basis of its processor is ARM's Cortex-A9 structure that has been outmoded by Cortex-A15.
The RAM of the Kindle Fire HD 2 is boosted from a 1GB to a 2GB, giving the Nexus 7 a run for its value. The new Kindle Fire HD 2 will be available in the following variants of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB.
The new Kindle Fire HD is expected to raise the bar higher with a 7-inch version that will include a 1920x1200 display and the 8.9 inches with a 2560x1600, ensuring a full HD experience.
AMAZON Kindle fire HD 8.9 (Video Courtesy: DetroitBORG via YouTube)
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The beauty industry is a highly competitive business. Just look at the store shelves and you’ll find countless brands with new products coming out all the time. — New shades/colors, new packaging, combo products, single material items, etc..
Sustainable practices are nothing new to beauty. Consumers are increasingly choosing natural, vegan, and medically approved products over conventional products.
According to McKinsey & Company’s “The State of Fashion: Beauty 2023” report, the beauty industry, which includes skincare, fragrances, cosmetics and hair care, will generate approximately $430 billion in revenue in 2022. Regionally, North America accounted for $85. By 2022, the industry as a whole will reach $1 billion, and is expected to reach about $115 billion by 2027.
Projected YoY growth from 2022 to 2027
- 7% more fragrance
- Cosmetics 6% growth
- Hair care 6% growth
- 6% growth at 45% of skin care market value
By region, the report shows that the Middle East and Africa will grow the fastest at 12% year-on-year by 2027, followed by China at 8% and APAC (excluding China) at 7%.
McKinsey 2023 Global Consumer Survey Finds More Than Half of Respondents Use 3 or More Brands in Skincare, Haircare and Fragrances, and One-Third Use 5 or More Brands in Cosmetics did.
Profitable and sustained growth over the next few years depends on strong innovation, according to a McKinsey report. Brand portfolios must adapt to rapid product lifecycles, and “hero” products are no longer the primary way to win over customers. Competition is fierce, and so is consumer desire to take advantage of a full range of beauty products to keep them looking and feeling their best.
42% of survey respondents in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy and China say they enjoy trying new brands.
– McKinsey State of Fashion: Beauty 2023 Report
Consumers shop for beauty products casually at department stores, grocery stores, e-commerce, drug stores, travel retailers and specialty stores.
Purchases made through e-commerce surged from 2015 to 2022, with a share of over 20%. This is the fastest growing segment of beauty products, with a projected 12% year-over-year growth rate through 2027. Travel retail is 10%. Specialty retail is projected to grow by 7%. Grocery retailers and drugstores are tied at 4%. Department stores and “Others” will increase by 2% year-on-year.
From 2015 to 2022, global e-commerce sales will grow at a CAGR of 20%, with eye makeup and skin care products (due to mask wearing) in particular growing significantly during the pandemic.
By 2022, digital shopping will overtake specialty retailers to become the world’s largest personal sales channel, accounting for about one-fifth of the industry as a whole. So far this year 31% of U.S. digital buyers spend between $1 and $50 per month. beauty products On average, according to Statista’s report.
Social media is the only place to see how beauty products are applied and how they are rated by consumers. This is the top channel for new product reviews, thanks in large part to his Gen Z. These his teens and his 20s not only offer a perspective on what beauty means today, but they also reign as beauty influencers.
Beauty companies, influencers, and consumers alike use TikTok and Instagram to inform trends through video reviews of beauty products and how-to applications.
In addition to our two most popular platforms, others include YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter where you can watch even more how-to and review videos.
Consumers now follow advice from dermatologists and other medical professionals more than celebrity influencers, indicating they are more serious about their future skin, hair and facial needs.
Top 5 beauty and personal care trends
Research group Euromonitor International has identified the top five trends.
- Premium and Affordable
- Material-driven beauty
- blurry wellness space
- Health and wellness support
- From function to feeling
1. Premium and Affordability
The recent rise in inflation has pushed beauty and health product prices higher, forcing consumers to make more selective decisions about the products they purchase.
according to Euromonitor InternationalWhat consumers say: The 2022 Summer Beauty Survey finds that global respondents seeking price-sensitive attributes (value-for-money, multi-functional benefits, low prices) when shopping for skincare in 2022 will increase by 2021 increased compared to about 2.5%.
The findings suggest that more quality seekers and premium buyers sought lower prices in 2022 compared to 2021, including through promotions and affordable brands.
As 2023 progresses, the concept of “value” is expected to evolve as beauty consumers reassess their spending habits. For example, a potency seeker is likely to be more price sensitive in 2022 than he is in 2021.
2. Material-driven beauty
T.His use of science in beauty products is nothing new, but biotechnology is taking it to a whole new level.
Today, there are many brands that meet the needs of environmentally conscious consumers with products made from plant-based ingredients. This significantly changes consumer trust in brands due to formula familiarity.
Beauty consumers are demanding sustainability, biotechnology and international beauty concepts. Essentially combining environmental sustainability and advances in biotechnology, “green chemistry” focuses on eliminating harmful substances and adding or replacing previous ingredients with bio-based ones to enhance beauty and It has emerged as a major focus area among personal care companies.
“Upcycling” is the latest green chemistry innovation, referring to the conversion of by-products and waste streams into usable ingredients, an area expected to accelerate in 2023.
3. Blurred Wellness Space
Post-Covid-19 consumer demand for holistic health and prevention is driving companies to merge their traditional portfolios with emerging health needs, according to Euromonitor. As a result, the beauty space and wellness space have become ambiguous.
Beauty is also expected to increase overlap with other industries.
“Looking healthy” was the most perceived way of beauty among consumers around the world.
– Euromonitor International Consumer Voices: Beauty Survey
McKinsey research shows that 45% of US consumers are interested in products that are 100% natural and cruelty-free. The percentage is about the same in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and China. And 39% of US consumers look for products that are free of environmentally harmful ingredients.
The report also reveals that the $1.5 trillion wellness industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10% through 2027.
4. Health and wellness support
As women’s empowerment and gender inclusion spread, increased awareness of women’s health will have a noticeable impact on the industry in 2023 and beyond. For example, a deeper understanding of how hormonal imbalances correlate with changing skin and hair needs offers the prospect of tailoring beauty routines with solutions for the entire cycle care.
This is a natural extension to the brand strategy in favor of a more holistic wellness-oriented approach.
5. From Function to Emotion
Gen Z has defined a new beauty. Nearly 50% of them thoroughly research beauty products before purchasing. This is also a fact obtained by McKinsey research. A Euromonitor report reveals that emotional values, such as inner health benefits and social value identities, are becoming integral factors in beauty consumer purchasing decisions.
Neuroscience, especially EEG detection, is beginning to be used as a biosignal to assess emotional function. The concept of ‘neuro-perfume’, which evokes neurologically proven emotional responses, opens up new product offering opportunities for fragrance and ingredient companies. and Educate consumers about this emerging segment.
Mergers and Acquisitions
The number of M&A transactions in 2019 and 2022 was about the same (174 and 175 respectively). But 2022 will be worth half the average value of 2019 deals, a McKinsey report shared.
Of the 139 deals that closed in 2022 with a stake of 30% or more, 90% were conglomerates.
Among the big deals for 2022, Procter & Gamble acquired probiotic skincare brand Tula. Unilever has acquired a majority stake in Nutrafall, a maker of hair wellness products. L’Oréal acquires American skincare brand SkinBetter Science. And Estée Lauder acquired the Tom Ford brand, creator of fragrances and accessories.
Sally Beauty, a leading retailer of salon-quality hair color, hair care and nail products, has just signed a retail agreement with hair color brand XMONDO Color.
L’Oréal is also making inroads into other retail spaces. The It’s Professionnel hair care range is now available for purchase at Sephora.com.
Both reports and additional research show that beauty is competitive, growing, and highly innovative.demand will continue Beauty and personal care products that educate, delight and deliver value — both financially and ethically.


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A Port St. Lucie woman said she saw Jesus Christ in her breakfast.
Marilyn Smith told WPBF News 25 that she was making breakfast on Sunday morning when she got a spiritual surprise: a faint image resembling Jesus and Mary on her pancake.
"I saw what looked like, possibly, what people may imagine Jesus would look like, or Moses," Smith said.
Smith's daughter, Dana Okane, told WPBF that she recognized the figures as soon as she saw them.
"Being a very spiritual person, which I am, when I saw that, I said, 'Jesus and Mary!'," Okane told WPBF.
Smith said she was making a batch of pancakes when one of them caught her eye. She said she was just about to put chocolate chips on it when she noticed the strange image on the cake.
Okane told WPBF that she thinks the image is a message from God.
"I think the message is extremely clear that the world had better clean up its act," Okane said.
When asked why she thought God would want to put a message on a pancake, Okane told WPBF reporter Amanda Burden, "Because it will get a lot of recognition."
Okane is now selling the holy cake on Internet auction site eBay with a starting bid of $35.


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Quebec, August 24, 2023—Microbrasserie Archibald’s beers stand out in the Canadian branch at the World Beer Awards (WBA) 2023, a competition that honours the world’s best beers.
This year’s 2023 medal ceremony is proof that Microbrasserie Archibald’s products are now more than ever holding their own on the national and international scenes. Earning no fewer than six medals, their beers stand out from the rest of the Canadian competition. These accolades speak volumes about the brand’s reputation, product appeal and exceptional team.
Sylvain Clep, Head Brewer, and Evelyne Bergeron, Innovation and Education Specialist, are representing the brand in this venture. For them, the WBAs showcase the work brewers do and provide an interesting platform for product vision on a national and international scale. Peer recognition is also invaluable.
For these two professionals, being part of the Archibald team is a real point of pride. Their goal is to offer high-quality, wide-ranging, mass-appeal products that bring people together.
“Since 2005, our ambition has been to get consumers to discover what expression beer is all about, and the passion is very much still there, guiding us in our choices of brewers. We’re the proud heirs of the brewers who came before us, and we have the hunger to stay number 1 and create a more flavourful and inclusive future!” — Sylvain Clep
ABOUT MICROBRASSERIE ARCHIBALD
Proudly born in the beautiful town of Lac-Beauport, Archibald is passionate about good beer and food. They’re in the business of creating unique moments that bring family and friends together around the table. Since 2005, the Archibald team has been brewing and developing many different styles of beer, from classic Lagers to NEIPAs. Their 6 restaurants attract thousands of customers every year, providing a unique forest-to-table experience. Without this more than 800-person team of top brewers, chefs and team members, Archibald would not be an industry leader.


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Tuesday, 2 March 2021
CDS TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE PACKAGE EXTENDED
Member for Albury Justin Clancy today announced that the NSW’s Government Temporary Assistance Package for small, independent border retailers impacted by the introduction of the Return and Earn container deposit scheme (CDS) will be extended until 2023.
“The temporary assistance package has really helped small retailers in our local community to manage arbitrage impacts that emerged as a consequence of Return and Earn being introduced in NSW,” Mr Clancy said.
“This extension – which will be in place until the Victorian Government rolls-out their CDS program – will ensure retailers on our side of the border continue to have access to business advice and funding assistance through to 2023.”
To date, the package has provided a combined $2.3 million to impacted retailers within 80km of the NSW-Victorian border, with individual rates determined by IPART impact assessments.
“The NSW funding support for NSW border retailers would not be necessary if not for Victoria pulling out of the agreed ‘east coast’ plan for all states to set up the same environmental scheme,” said Mr Clancy.
“Here in Albury we are seeing the positive outcomes from having a stream of CDS collected, clean PET plastics for new businesses which are taking up the challenge of recycling that produces real results, real benefits for the environment.
Under the extension, current funding levels and payment arrangements will continue.
“This is all about providing continuity and certainty for our small, independent retailers,” Mr Clancy said.
“The EPA will oversee the support initiative and will be contacting each of the impacted retailers individually over the coming week to guide recipients through the administrative process and answer any questions.”
Existing recipients will be required to complete updated documentation to facilitate the support payments. Once completed and returned to the EPA, retailers will receive confirmation and the next annual payment instalment will be released.


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GM-Peugeot alliance to jointly develop new platform, SUV, MPV, small car in the offing
Peugeot might have shunned its India plans directly and it might have surrendered its allotted land in Gujarat but it has not lost hopes in developing markets wholly. In alliance with GM, Peugeot will be developing cars for Europe and emerging markets. The cars will primarily include compact SUV, MPV and B segment cars. Thus in all probability the GM-Peugeot car will target Renault Duster, Ford Ecosport and Maruti XA Alpha in particular in India in the SUV segment and Maruti Ertiga, Toyota Innova, Nissan Evalia, Mahindra Xylo in the MUV segment and Maruti Swift, Ford Figo and others in the small car segment.
In a recent joint press release issued, the alliance has showed interest in developing cars for Europe and emerging markets and it has no expressed mention of India but India and Brazil apart from others are the largest emerging markets and no car maker can avoid these in framing its strategy. As pre the alliance reports, it will be developing joint platforms and thus that will be used in GM owned Opel/Vauxhall brand as well as Peugeot. This way both the car makers will be able to launch new cars based on the same platform and this will let them increase their profitability.
However, this will not have any concrete effect until 2016 when the first GM-Peugeot car will be launched. The alliance will also be coming up with a highly frugal, low CO2 petrol motor that will be put under the hood of its brand cars. Notably, it was at the Indian Auto Expo held in January this year, the French car maker was very bullish about India and it showcased Peugeot 508 and Peugeot 208 cars for India but things went wrong then and market slowed down leading to the revision of its strategy.


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Officially speaking, GM are in talks with Renault-Nissan and are due to report on the outcome of their deliberations in just under a month’s time.
Unofficially, Automotive News (accessed via Autoblog) are reporting that GM and Ford are playing footsie under the table.
Not sure if there’s anything in this, but now you know.
UPDATE: Put that fire out, man!! This lobbed into my inbox this morning from Saab in the US (yeah, I know). I’m presuming it’s from the WSJ as linked at Jalopnik, but am yet to trace it.
DETROIT – General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. briefly discussed the concept of an alliance between the two automakers but have dropped the idea and plan no further talks, two people familiar with the matter said.
GM and Ford are both trying to turn around their auto operations after massive losses in North America. Their chief financial officers, Frederick “Fritz” Henderson of GM and Don Leclair of Ford, met recently and discussed the idea of working together, these people said. The talks were reported by Automotive News, an industry trade publication.
GM declined to confirm or deny the discussions with Ford. “As we have often said, GM officials routinely discuss issues of mutual interest with other automakers. As a policy, we do not confirm or comment publicly on those private discussions, which in many cases never lead anywhere,” said Steven Harris, GM’s vice president for global communications.
But individuals familiar with the situation at each company say leaders at GM and Ford are committed for now to pursuing their separate restructuring plans.


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During the event, was launched a joint report by FCSSC and UNOSSC titled “South-South Cooperation in a Digital World” which analyzes digital opportunities and challenges in the context of South-South cooperation.
The report further explores and analyzes development prospects and trends affecting and impacting digital industries in the Global South, and finally puts forward proposals for digital industrial cooperation among Southern countries. The research also focuses on the impact of digital technology in promoting cross-border trade and investment facilitation; the application of smart contracts in cross-border trade and smart supervision issues. It analyzes the potential of digital finance to promote the development of inclusive finance for sustainable development and proposes developing digital financial infrastructure, human capital investment and capacity building in the Global South.
The launching ceremony was moderated by Dr. Xiaolin Wang, Professor of Fudan University and Executive Dean of the Sixth Industrial Research Institute), who together with Dr. Hany Besada, Senior Research Coordinator of the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) and Dr. Rashmi Banga, Senior Economic Affairs Officer, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), discussed the outcomes and conclusions of the joint research.


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The government will strengthen economic co-operation with African countries, with the aim of exporting more food commodities for Indonesian food factories in that continent.
The Foreign Ministry's Salman Al Farisi said African countries were now a major prospective market for Indonesia in terms of food commodities, since their large populations were looking for affordable food products.
"Families in African countries spend 70 per cent of their income on food on average. Thus [increasing exports] is important for us to do," Salman told thejakartapost.com on Monday.
Eyeing the potential market, Indonesian consumer goods giant PT Indofood Sukses Makmur had opened instant noodle factories in Morocco and Kenya, following the first factory in Nigeria that had shown a significant success, Salman said.
The expansion meant Indonesia would increase its exports of raw food commodities to supply the factories, since African people's daily consumption of Indonesian instant noodles was twice of that of Indonesian themselves, Salman said.
According to Salman, Indonesia's exports to African countries surpassed US$10 billion (S$14.3 billion) per year, with 2010 to 2014's exports, particularly to Nigeria and South Africa, jumping by more than 10 per cent each year.
Furthermore, during the economic slowdown in 2015 when the trend of global trade slackened, trade with African countries actually increased, thus showing that Indonesia should intensely keep an eye on the African market, Salman said.
"We will further boost our potential by strengthening our exports to African countries," Salman added.


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Full-up Google choking on web spam?
Posted on 5th May, 2006
There’s an interesting article over at The Register pointing out problems Google might be experiencing after the Big Daddy update in January.
Alarm usually accompanies changes to Google’s algorithms, as the new rankings can cause websites to be demoted, or disappear entirely. But four months on from the introduction of “Big Daddy,” it’s clear that the problem is more serious than any previous revision – and it’s getting worse.
Webmasters now report sites not being crawled for weeks, with Google SERPS (search engine results pages) returning old pages, and failing to return results for phrases that used to bear fruitful results.
“Some sites have lost 99 per cent of their indexed pages,” reports one member of the Webmaster World forum. “Many cache dates go back to 2004 January.” Others report long-extinct pages showing up as “Supplemental Results.”
Google’s chief executive Eric Schmidt has hinted that Google is having a huge machine crisis, those servers are chocked full of stuff…
Read more: Full-up Google choking on web spam?
In a related topic, you might want to read this:


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The new SUV is seen to have a set of new, sporty looking LED headlights and tail lights.
The rivalry between BMW M GmbH and Mercedes-AMG is as eternal as it goes.
It has been more than a month since BMW unveiled the controversial nose job kidney grille on the 2021
Like the 530i, the new 530e is locally-assembled (CKD) at BMW’s Kulim plant.At launch, BMW Malaysia
BMW Malaysia has introduced the all-new G82 BMW M4 Competition, with an optional Innovation Package.
The updated 2021 BMW M5 facelift has leaked onto the internet, hours before the model’s official
Tiguan Allspace is set to receive sharper looks and more technical hightlights.Current Tiguan Allspace tail
Well, it seems like BMW Malaysia is charging up its EV game, as they have begun teasing the 2021 BMW
Here’s another leaked photo after the rear of the all-new BMW M3 was caught undisguised.
The 2020 BMW M3 and M4 make their final development test on various tracks around Europe.
BMW 1M, M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6, and M8. See what number is missing there?
The world debut for a limited-edition BMW M4 Coupe will be scheduled at the Nürburgring on September
BMW Group Malaysia ended 2020 with a total of 9,890 BMW and MINI cars delivered, down 5 percent from
Image creditBy now, you would have read all about the BMW M4 crash at Tanjong Pagar Road, Singapore.
February 13, a tragic accident on Tanjong Pagar road in Singapore claimed the lives of five men in a BMW
After numerous leaks and teases, BMW has just unveiled the updated 2021 F90 BMW M5.
BMW has unveiled the 2020 BMW iX3 today and offered hints at what the future looks like for the brand
We’ve already seen videos of how fast the BMW M4 was going in the tragic accident in Singapore
A photo depicting the front-end of the the all-new 2020 BMW M4 has leaked ahead of the models debut in
Before came the G80/G82 BMW M3 and BMW M4, there was one other BMW model that received its share of flak
Over the weekend, Malaysians and Singaporeans were shocked about the news of a BMW M4 Coupe crashing
For generations, the BMW M3 was sold as a sedan, a coupe, and a convertible - the latter 2 became the
With the upcoming 2020 BMW M3 and M4 set to launch in Sept, BMW is slowly trickling info to set tongues
custom-building department, Rolls Royce Coachbuilding, released photos of this one-off Rolls Royce Boat Tail
Remember when BMW launched the G22 4-Series back in June and we were all (mostly) aghast at its controversial
These are the official pictures of the 2021 G80 BMW M3 and I know some of you might be appalled by the
In celebration of Malaysia Day, over 70 BMW M high-performing cars and hundreds of M fans gathered at
Rendering by zer.o.wtThe BMW i4 has been confirmed a while ago and recently, Autocar reported that the
Still, some of us at the office think that the massive grille fits on the performance-grade M4 better
before, seen the spyshots, covered the development but one thing remains certain - the all-new 2021 BMW
bmw m4 tinted tail lights-bmw m4 tinted tail lights-NEW HEADLIGHTS BMW E46, NO MORE FLY EYE TINT
bmw m4 tinted tail lights-bmw m4 tinted tail lights-BMW 3 Series F30 F80 M3 Taillight M4 GTS Design 宝马3系改装M4 GTS龙鳞尾灯
bmw m4 tinted tail lights-Detailing BMW M4 CS Car
bmw m4 tinted tail lights-How to Remove the 3rd Brake Light BMW 4 series 2016
bmw m4 tinted tail lights-Genuine BMW LED LCI Rear Tail Lights F30 3 Series retrofit
bmw m4 tinted tail lights-VW Transporter | Detailed And Gyeon Ceramic Coated
bmw m4 tinted tail lights-BMW F30 F80 M4 GTS OLED Style Taillight Giveaway!!!
bmw m4 tinted tail lights-BMWの隠された特徴/機能！ （F30、F32、F33、F80、F82、F83）
bmw m4 tinted tail lights-bmw m4 tinted tail lights-F30 Chrome Delete!
bmw m4 tinted tail lights-Rebuilding A Wrecked BMW M4 Part. 1
New facelifted BMW M4/4 Series. Looks hot with those dark tinted tail lights
Bmw M4- Window tinting all around- Tail lights tinted- Front grill wrapped in gloss… https://instagram.com/p/BgyY-o0gP2c/
Yes, BMW M4 Coupe is available in Cupholders. The available Cupholders variants are: 2019 BMW M4 C…Read More
Yes, BMW M4 Coupe has Navigation, which are: 2019 BMW M4 Coupe M4 DCT.Read More
Here are the Horsepower (PS) and variants of BMW M4 Coupe:Read More


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Korangi Association of Trade and Industry (KATI) Patron-in-Chief SM Muneer, President Faraz-ur-Rehman, KITE Limited CEO Zubair Chhaya, Senior Vice President Nighat Awan and Vice President Muslim Mohammadi welcomed the appointment of renowned industrialist Zubair Motiwala as Chief Executive Officer of Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP).
SM Muneer said that Zubair Motiwala is well aware of the potential and challenges faced by the export industry and it is hoped that he will play an important role to promote Pakistani Products to reach new markets.
While congratulating Zubair Motiwala, KATI President Faraz-ur-Rehman said that KATI will fully cooperate in all the steps taken to increase exports.
Faraz-ur-Rehman hoped that just as SM Munir headed TDAP and played a key role in increasing exports in the past and organized numerous exhibitions abroad, Zubair Motiwala may follow in his footsteps and play a positive role in the promotion of Pakistani products.
Zubair Chhaya, CEO of KITE Limited, said that TDAP can play an important role in improving exports from Pakistan. In this regard, single-country exhibitions must be held in friendly countries to market Pakistani Products in a better way.


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From the Field
Chinese refiners increase exports
BEIJING, July 13, 2016 – Chinese exports of refined fuels were up 38% year-on-year in June, data from the country’s Customs administration released on Wednesday showed. Sluggish domestic demand has prompted refiners to sell surpluses abroad. Last month, China exported some 1.02 million bpd.
The recent flood is also driven by the rise of independently operated, or teapot, refineries. These companies have been able to obtain import licences since July 2015, and more than 100 operators now buy their feedstock from cheaper foreign suppliers as opposed to state-owned companies. Teapot refineries can purchase as much as 1 million bopd, or 15% of China’s imports, and are now making their first forays into the export market.
Benefitting from cheaper feedstock, the teapot refineries have been able to increase production, and this has not gone unnoticed by China’s bigger downstream players, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation and China National Petroleum Corporation, who have upped their sales abroad. China’s refined fuels exports in 2016 to date are 45% higher than last year.


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The Sydney Opera House has announced that it is the exclusive Australian streaming partner for 'Dream', a live, online performance from The Royal Shakespeare Company that uses innovative gaming and motion-capture technology.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is set to launch new 2020 guidelines on Child Online Protection (COP), re-designed from the ground up to reflect what the ITU says are the significant shifts in the digital landscape in which children find themselves, such as the Internet of Things, connected toys, online gaming, robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Director of UNSW Canberra Space Professor Russell Boyce has been named a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).
It's a mess, sadly. Will Assange ever be free?
Sounds like they'll be both processing plenty of Dosh and earning plenty of it too!
EV cars - if only they were powered by beta carotene
Hmmm, US Military/Intelligence serivces taking a particular interest in MS Security vulnerabilities - that wouldn't have anything to do with[…]
I wonder if they would consider running a cable across the Tasman and offering Fibre Max speeds to us Aussies.[…]


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Revlon has created the new position of global chief marketing officer and filled with it a consumer products industry veteran.
Julia Goldin has already begun as senior vice president and global chief marketing officer, the company said Friday.
The 41-year-old oversees all marketing activities for the beauty products company.
CEO Alan Ennis said Revlon wants to build its brands through marketing and Goldin will help lead the efforts.
Goldin started at Quaker Oats, and then spent 13 years with Coca-Cola Co., holding senior executive marketing positions in the U.S., Europe and Asia. She was most recently senior vice president and deputy chief marketing officer of Coca-Cola Japan.
Shares of Revlon Inc. rose 32 cents, or 2.9 percent, to $11.41 in midday trading Friday.


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While United States security officials are holding off on imposing an expanded laptop ban for now, reports indicate the policy is still “on the table.”
Politico reports that a European Commission official said that both the United States and European Union had agreed to “intensify technical talks and try to find a common solution” following a conference call.
Following the call, however, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told The Hill that an expanded ban is still “on the table.”
"While a much-discussed expansion of the ban on large electronic devices in the cabin on flights to the United States was not announced today, the Secretary made it clear that an expansion is still on the table," the spokesperson told The Hill.
The update comes as security experts continue to debate the safety impact of an expanded laptop ban. When the ban was initially announced, security officials said that it was motivated by fears that terrorists could manually detonate explosives hidden in large electronic devices after taking them aboard in carry-on luggage. At the same time, other experts have warned that a ban could lead passengers to check more lithium ion-powered electronic devices in the airplane’s cargo hold, potentially posing a fire risk.
According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) statistics cited by Bloomberg, there have been 160 incidents involving lithium ion batteries in cargo holds since 1991, including two crashes in 2010 and 2011. At the same time, the FAA told Bloomberg that transporting the batteries in bulk creates a different scenario than shipping electronics in checked luggage, and that the agency is in the planning stages for additional tests on the potential danger of a laptop ban.
A JetBlue flight earlier this week provided an example of the risks posed by lithium batteries when a passenger’s laptop caught fire, forcing the plane to be diverted. The laptop was in the passenger’s carry-on luggage, and crew was able to put out the fire before the plane landed.
The current ban currently applies to 10 airports in the Middle East and North Africa. Travel agents with clients that might be affected by the ban can keep an eye on the current list of airports and airlines affected here. For clients concerned about the safety of their electronic devices while they are traveling as checked baggage, we’ve compiled a list of quick travel insurance tips regarding the new electronics ban to share.


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A New York-area fitness chain is being sued after continuing to charge membership fees despite being shut down amid the spread of the coronavirus.
A customer has filed suit against New York Sports Clubs, claiming that she was charged her normal monthly membership fees even as the facilities were shut down to stop the spread of the coronavirus. As Bloomberg reported, the lawsuit accuses parent company Town Sports International Inc. of making it “virtually impossible” to cancel memberships. The suit, which has been filed as a class action, said that the practice of continuing to charge such fees while clubs are closed is “the height of corporate greed.”
“People around the country are feeling enormous financial strain due to ‘shelter-in-place’ regulations, business closures, abrupt mass layoffs and the recent market collapse,” the legal complaint read. “As a result, numerous gyms chains have on their own accord announced that membership charges will be suspended. TSI has not –- and this conduct is the height of corporate greed, lack of empathy and putting profits before people.”
The report noted that the company operates close to 100 gyms in the tri-state area. All facilities have been indefinitely closed in accordance with state and federal guidelines regarding COVID-19 and due to the New York City area being in virtual lockdown.
Across the country, a number of businesses have struggled with how to handle pre-paid and subscription services that are now indefinitely suspended. As USA Today wrote, teams from the NBA, NHL, and Major League Baseball have held off on refunding customers holding tickets for games that were postponed, sticking to their normal ticket policies for suspended or rained-out games by keeping the money as credit for another game when the leagues resume.
That has left a number of angry customers, the report noted, especially as they feel the financial squeeze from lost work.
“People are out here unable to get basic necessities and @StubHub refuses to issue refunds until @MLB ‘cancels’ games that tickets have been purchased for,” a Twitter user complained. “I’m not getting what I paid for and in times like these, your companies need to do better. Do the right thing!”
It was not clear when New York Sports Clubs locations would re-open, but the New York area is expected to have several more weeks of a surge in coronavirus cases, as the metro has become the epicenter for the outbreak in the United States.


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Telltale Games is dead, but the Stranger Things game lives
Telltale Games is dead, but the Stranger Things game lives ⚡⚡⚡ Esports and gaming news, analytics, reviews on WePlay! The latest news on WePlay!
The gaming community is still getting over the news about Telltale Games closure. The most successful project of the studio, The Walking Dead, might finish abruptly without a proper finale and we won’t find out how Clementine’s story ends.
As we know, Telltale Games suddenly laid off about 90% of the staff, keeping a skeletal crew of 25 employees who will fulfil “the company’s obligations to its board and partners.” The press release didn’t specify what those obligations include, but there is an argument to be made, that the remaining Telltale workforce could finish the remaining Minecraft: Story Mode episodes the game adaptation of Stranger Things.
Polygon asked Netflix to comment on the fate of the games that were planned according to a deal between streaming service and Telltale Games in June. Back then Stranger Things was announced as the first major project that would come out of the partnership.
Here is what Netflix said in response:
— We are in the process of evaluating other options for bringing the Stranger Things universe to life in an interactive medium.”
Netflix also confirmed that Minecraft: Story Mode will be developed by Telltale as previously planned. If Netflix agrees to sponsor the project (they might have to do it anyway), there could still be a chance that the Telltale skeletal crew also will be tasked to work on Stranger Things.
A couple of other games, that were in the plans for the future, most likely will be transferred to other game studios.


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Stormi's already getting into the $900m family business! Kylie Jenner's baby tries to get her hands on beauty products in sweet new video
She recently revealed she hadn't yet decided when she'll let her six-month-old daughter Stormi Webster start wearing makeup.
And it appears as though it might be sooner than Kylie Jenner expected.
Taking to Instagram Stories on Tuesday morning, the 21-year-old shared an adorable video of her daughter amused by best friend Jordyn Wood's make-up collection.
Starting her early! Kylie Jenner's six-month-old Stormi showed a definite interest into her mom's $900 million makeup line on Tuesday
'Bugging aunty jordy this morning,' she captioned the sweet video.
Kylie sported a black clouch sweater for the morning clip.
Her newly died blonde locks were styled out behind her ears as she was makeup free.
Just like her mom! Taking to Instagram Stories on Tuesday morning, the 21-year-old shared an adorable video of her daughter amused by best friend Jordyn Wood's beauty collection
Stormi was dressed in an sleeveless pinstriped onesie and had adorable tiny yellow bow in her tiny curls.
Kicking Jordyn's makeup bag into the sink, the tot was seen doing her best to pick it back up with her feet.
Recently showcasing her makeup look in a Vogue tutorial , Kylie revealed that she wasn't sure when she was going to let her first-born wear makeup.
A definite interest: Kicking Jordyn's makeup bag into the sink, the tot was seen doing her best to pick it back up with her feet
Aunty Jordy! Jordyn Woods with best friend Kylie's daughter Stormi when she was one-month-old
'I haven't thought about when I am letting Stormi wear makeup,' she shared.
'I mean I am going to let her wear makeup, but the question is when.'
And it's not the first time Kylie's opened up about what she sees in her future when it comes to her Kylie Cosmetics brand and her daughter.
Passing down the company: 'Maybe one day [I'll] pass this on to Stormi if she's into it,' she said in her Forbes interview
Speaking in her Forbes interview, where it was revealed she was 'set to be the youngest-ever self-made billionaire', the sister of Kendall Jenner revealed she would like to pass on her company to Stormi one day.
'Maybe one day [I'll] pass this on to Stormi if she's into it,' she said.
Kylie, who turned 21 last Friday August 10's brand is currently valued at $900 million, according to Forbes.
Building an empire: Kylie, who turned 21 last Friday August 10's brand is currently valued at $900 million, according to Forbes
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About 20,000 workers at the 30 U.S. West Coast ports are responsible for handling well over a third of all goods that enter and leave the United States. But these longshore and warehouse workers will be without a contract starting on Tuesday, which means cargo traffic is likely to slow in the coming weeks.
“Trade operations at all seaports along the U.S. West Coast face a summer of uncertainty,” warned a report released Thursday by two trade groups representing retailers and manufacturers. In it, the groups estimated that a 10-day work stoppage at the ports would cost the U.S. economy $21 billion and 169,000 jobs.
The West Coast shipyard workers’ contract with the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), the group representing port employers, expires on Monday. Negotiations between the PMA and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) have historically been settled within a couple of weeks after the contract expires, in the middle of July, but protracted and ugly showdowns have sometimes happened in the past.
Works slowdowns delay the movement of seaborne goods through the west coast. In 2002, the negotiations lasted for months before the White House intervened to end a 10-day lockout. It took weeks to get port activity back to normal.
In 2008, contract negations went more smoothly but productivity at some ports still dropped by as much as 30 percent. Six years ago, the PMA won concessions that allowed employers to introduce more automated guided vehicles and stacking cranes, reducing the need for manual labor.
“It is likely there will be some disruption, but how much is very hard to predict,” said the Journal of Commerce, which covers the global cargo shipping industry.
Strikes would be crippling to port traffic, but even slowdowns can force ships to disembark before all the cargo has been moved, adding logistics costs to re-route goods. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) issued guidelines on Wednesday outlining procedures for diverting cargo.
“CPB’s Office of Field Operations is working diligently to ensure that potentially affected stakeholders and business partners are aware of CBP’s business resumption plans in the event of a strike,” agency spokesperson Erlinda Byrd said to International Business Times by email.
The ILWU officially represents the estimated 13,600 longshore and warehouse workers (excluding the roughly 7,000 walk-ons who get work when it’s available) in Washington state, Oregon and California, but often workers will engage in slowdowns, such as taking extended breaks, to protest if they feel their union representatives in San Francisco are not advocating strongly enough on certain issues.
The ILWU is fighting to keep its current health care benefits despite the estimated annual $190 million increase to their plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that neither side in the negotiations wants to absorb. The union also expects guarantees to its jurisdiction over waterfront activities by other unions or outside contract labor. Last year, the ILWU pulled out of the AFL-CIO after it accused the umbrella union of displacing its members at a new grain terminal in Longview, Washington.
The PMA is pushing back on the ILWU’s jurisdiction claims and wants the freedom to bring in electricians, mechanics and computer technicians to perform duties it says ILUW workers aren’t qualified to do. The employers also want to increase the work day by an hour. The PMA says costs have to be kept in line in order to retain business that could shift to other destinations.
“In 2002, the West Coast ports handled about 50 percent of the total U.S. imported containerized cargo. By 2013, the West Coast ports share had fallen to 43.5 percent,” said a PMA report from April, citing official trade data, just before contract negotiations began. While West Coast port traffic has declined, traffic through ports in other parts of the country have remained steady or have increased in the same period of time, the group said.
The PMA said that a full time longshore worker earns an average of $132,000 a year, but the ILUW points out its current labor contract calls for $35 an hour for the most experienced workers, which would be $72,800 at full time without overtime. The PMA’s annual report (pdf) from 2013 shows that over a third of the workers get about 30 hours a week.


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Luka Koper plans higher revenue, lower profit for 2020
Koper, 13 December - Luka Koper, the operator of Slovenia's only sea port Koper, plans to increase group net sales revenue in 2020 by 4% against 2019, while net profit is planned 19% below this year's EUR 39 million. The cargo transshipped next year should rise by 3% from this year's estimated 23.4 million tonnes.
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Domino’s announced Tuesday that its president and chief executive officer, J. Patrick Doyle, plans to depart from the company on June 30 after more than eight years at the helm. Doyle is retiring following one of the most impressive turnarounds in quick-service history.
When Doyle took over for David A. Brandon, who stepped down March 7, 2010, Domino’s shares were trading for $11.90 on the stock market. They closed Tuesday at $206.71. Among the brand’s evolution into a tech leader, Doyle spearheaded Domino’s culinary reinvention, once (unofficially) deemed the “Our Pizza Sucks” project.
“One of the great honors and opportunities of my professional life was being named CEO of this incredible brand in early 2010,” Doyle said in a statement. “At that time, I set three goals for myself: I wanted us to become the No. 1 pizza company in the world; I wanted Domino’s to provide our franchisees with the best possible return on their investment by creating a dramatically better experience for our customers; and I wanted to have a Leadership Team in place that would be ready to create even better results into the future. I’m proud to say that we’ve accomplished all of those goals, and I will leave Domino’s knowing that it is in great hands.”
Domino’s board of directors announced that Richard Allison, 50, the president of Domino’s International, would succeed Doyle as CEO. Allison currently oversees more than 9,000 stores and all franchise relationships outside of the U.S. He joined the company in March 2011 as executive vice president of International from Bain & Company, Inc.
“Under Ritch’s leadership, Domino’s international division grew by more than 4,500 stores in more than 85 markets in six years. Domino’s International has achieved 95 consecutive quarters of same store sales growth and accounts for more than one-half of the company’s global retail sales,” said Brandon, who is now Domino’s chairman of the board, in a statement. “The board is confident Ritch is well-prepared to lead the company to the next level.”
Russell Weiner, the brand’s president of Domino’s USA, will also step into a newly created role of chief operating officer of Domino’s and president of the Americas. Both appointments are effective July 1.
“I am honored and humbled by this opportunity, as well as the trust and faith the board of directors has in me to lead this incredible global brand,” Allison said in a statement. “Patrick Doyle inspired us with the vision to become the world’s market share leader in pizza, and we’ve done that. Now, we’re looking to continue accelerating our growth with the support of our tremendous franchisees, managers and team members the world over. We want to become the dominant player in pizza everywhere in the world. I can’t wait to get started.”
Domino’s said Weiner was responsible for the reinvention of Domino’s U.S. menu, which has been critical to its record-setting sales increases. He’s also credited with for the creation of Domino’s “Pizza Theater” store design, the redesign of the brand logo, and the invention of the DXP pizza delivery vehicle.
“Joining Domino’s as CMO in 2008 was the thrill of a lifetime for me,” Weiner said in a statement. “We had an opportunity to take a ‘legacy’ brand that was almost 50 years old and make it fresh again. Any marketer would love to have that chance. But then to become president of the U.S. business and now, to serve as Chief Operating Officer and to lead the Americas, is an honor that is difficult to describe. I’m looking forward to working closely with Ritch as we set our sights even higher than ever.”
“As we continue to globalize our business, it is important that we create synergies and centers of excellence across the Domino’s system,” Brandon added. “In his role as COO of Domino’s, Russell will be leading this effort. As president of the Americas, he will oversee marketing, operations, store growth and development, franchise relationships, strategy and insights and e-commerce for Domino’s in the Americas—markets that account for 50 percent of Domino’s global retail sales.”
The pizza chain has grown 1,182 locations over the trailing four quarters and had 14,434 total stores as of September 10, 2017. Same-store sales growth of 8.4 percent in the third quarter, year-over-year in the U.S., marked 26 consecutive quarters of positive sales momentum in Domino’s domestic business. Internationally, the brand reported 5.1 percent growth, making it 95 consecutive quarters of positive same-store sales.
“Patrick excelled at every role he served at Domino’s for more than 20 years and during the past eight, he distinguished himself as one of the best leaders in the restaurant industry,” Brandon said. “Under his leadership, the brand opened more than 5,500 stores, launched in more than a dozen new countries, and Domino’s became one of the top-performing stocks of the decade. As important, though, is the fact that he developed an outstanding leadership team, which has allowed the board to select a successor from that team.”
Before being named CEO, Doyle was president of Domino’s USA for three years and a member of the company since 1997. Before becoming an executive, Doyle led the company’s corporate store unit, international division, and the marketing department.
Doyle’s legacy will be anchored by Domino’s ability to morph into a digital leader. At year-end 2016, more than 60 percent of orders placed in the U.S. were made via digital channels at Domino’s. That includes Twitter, text messaging, smart watches, Google Home, and Facebook Messenger. This commitment to digital innovation helped Domino’s reach an estimated $5.6 billion in global digital sales in 2016, the company said.
Some technological rollouts lately have included the expansion of Domino’s rewards program, where the chain became the first national pizza delivery company, it said, to offer loyalty points via online, phone, and in-store orders.
The brand announced in late August it was researching self-driving delivery vehicles through a partnership with Ford Motor Co. Domino’s also enhanced its Amazon Alexa service by increasing the customization and simplicity of the platform.
The pizza chain introduced its Piece of the Pie rewards program in 2015 as a points-based system, and has since expanded it as a way for customers to win free shares of Domino’s stock through a rewards contest and to now include ordering through all platforms.


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Hey M Girls!
Kendall and Kylie Jenner gave us a sneak peek of their new clothing line a week ago. Now we finally have some footage of them behind the scenes of their photo shoot for the PacSun line -- it took place on Wednesday in Malibu, Hawaii!
Kylie spills more deets to PEOPLE Magazine about the collection: "Everyone always talks about how much they love our style, so we took some of our favorite pieces from our closets and made them our own."
The upcoming launch in Feb. wouldn't have been possible without the inspiration of the older Kardashian sisters' clothing line. "Watching our sisters go through the process was really cool and inspiring," Kendall says.
Let's dish: -What do you think of the clip? Do you think Kylie and Kendall's clothing collection will be a success?


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Wiley Rein Named an “International Trade Group of the Year” by Law360 for Third Consecutive Year
For the third year in a row, Wiley Rein’s International Trade Practice has been named an “International Trade Group of the Year” by Law360.
The team of 22 attorneys and five non-attorney professionals “has established itself as a force in trade remedy and emerging markets issues,” the publication said in a January 30 profile. The group earned its Law360 recognition with wins such as helping U.S. manufacturers score approvals for duties on solar and wind-tower products imported from China.
"What we're really proud of is that we keep Americans employed," said practice chair Alan H. Price. "You can't have any economic recovery if you don't have jobs in the United States."
Companies turn to Wiley Rein because of its knack for scoring high-profile victories in a variety of forums, Mr. Price and International Trade partner Timothy C. Brightbill told Law360 in an interview. “We have a record of successful results in front of the agencies and courtrooms but also when it comes to working behind the scenes on Capitol Hill or with policymakers,” Mr. Brightbill said.
There aren't many firms that can provide U.S.-based industries and producers with the kind of global strategic advice, knowledge of Capitol Hill and agency expertise that Wiley Rein offers, Mr. Price said. Because the firm doesn't have its own commercial relationship within China, it's one of the few where aggrieved companies can go to truly deal with China trade problems, he added.
After filing the first anti-dumping and countervailing duty litigation in the renewable energy sector in 2011—on behalf of SolarWorld Industries America Inc.—Wiley Rein this year persuaded U.S. regulators to impose duties on Chinese solar producers.
“It was really the survival of the [U.S. solar] industry that was at stake in this case,” Mr. Brightbill told Law360. “The solar industry is not out of the woods yet, but without these cases, there wouldn't be a solar manufacturing industry here in the United States.”
The firm had also filed petitions on behalf of a coalition of U.S. wind tower producers, seeking antidumping investigations into Chinese and Vietnamese imports of utility scale wind towers. The investigations led U.S. regulators to levy duties on the products from both countries.
"One of the largest Chinese producers of wind towers is actually a Chinese military shipbuilder which is essentially owned by the central government and has been executing a policy of viewing renewable energy as a strategic resource and basically giving its products away to capture the market and drive everyone else out of business," Mr. Price told Law360.
Wiley Rein's team was one of five International Trade groups selected by a team of Law360 editors who reviewed nearly 550 submissions.
- International Trade
- Customs Law and Compliance
- Economic Sanctions/OFAC
- Export Controls
- Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and Anti‑Corruption
- Antidumping and Countervailing Duties/Import Relief Proceedings
- International Arbitration/Dispute Resolution
- Negotiations and Agreement Compliance
- Trade Policy
- National Security
Senior Communications Manager


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The private equity owner of Office is set to offload the footwear chain to South African retailer Truworths International in a deal valued at £256m.
Under Silverfleet’s ownership, footwear retailer Office expanded from 75 to 115 stores in the UK and Ireland and opened six stores in Germany. Concessions also increased to 47.
Silverfleet bought Office from owner West Coast Capital (WCC) five years ago in a deal understood to have been worth about £150m.
The deal is expected to be complete in early December and is subject to approval by the South African Reserve Bank.
As part of deal Office’s management will retain an 11.1% stake in business. However Turworths will have a right to buy the stake in three to five years.
Gareth Whiley, partner at Silverfleet Capital, said: “Office has been one of the great success stories in shoe retailing and has experienced tremendous growth in a competitive space. It is a fantastic business with an excellent management team whom we have worked with very closely over the past five years.
“We are delighted with our successful investment in the company, achieving a 3.4 times return, and wish the team every success in the future.”
Office chief executive Brian McCluskey said: “Together with Silverfleet, we have grown the business into the success it is today. We are excited to have found a long-term strategic retail partner in Truworths International. We look to further invest in the business and continue our success.”


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Smash-like platform fighter Rivals of Aether allows players to create custom characters and put them up for download through the Steam Workshop. One such character, modelled after the Nintendo Switch’s ubiquitous Joy-Con controllers, is pretty dang accurate. So accurate, in fact, that it even drifts like a real Joy-Con.
The fighter, simply named Joy Con, was released last month by third-party modder srPerez, who has developed a variety of characters for Rivals of Aether. After messing around with it for a bit, it’s easy to tell a lot of work went into making Joy Con a fully fleshed-out character, if a little unwieldy due to the inherent drift. That said, it’s found fans among the game’s community.
“I thought this was just gonna be a crappy meme character, but it was actually really good,” wrote one commenter.
“This character is unironically fun to play,” wrote another.
Joy-Con drift has been an ongoing problem for Switch owners since the console’s release in early 2017. Users have had a hard time pinning down an exact reason it happens, but Nintendo took any personal responsibility out of the equation when it began offering free repairs in 2019. This is a particularly fun experience for Switch Lite owners, who have to send in their entire system.
That wasn’t enough to avoid legal trouble, however. A class-action lawsuit filed last year is still undergoing arbitration. Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa eventually offered a personal apology for the problem in June 2020. Unfortunately, the issue is known to pop back up even after repairs.
While annoying, Switch users — like Kotaku reporter Nathan Grayson — have grown accustomed to the drift. What better way to deal with failing $US80 ($110) controllers than turning them into a meme?
The Cheapest NBN 1000 Plans
Looking to bump up your internet connection and save a few bucks? Here are the cheapest plans available.


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The National, Monday August 24th, 2015
PAPUA New Guinea has become the largest trading partner and the most important investment destination for China in the Pacific region, China’s Ambassador to PNG Li Ruiyou says.
He said this last Friday during a reception at the Chinese Embassy to farewell more than 30 students who will travel to China next month to undertake studies in various fields as part of the Chinese government scholarship programme.
“As this year marks PNG’s 40th independence anniversary, it is also the 39th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations between China and PNG,” Li said. “Over the decades, our diplomatic relations have achieved great progress.”
He said last year, the total trade volume between PNG and China reached US$2 billion (K5.5bn) and this year it should increase as China would spend a huge sum of money to buy 2 million tonnes of PNG LNG.
“As developing countries, China and PNG are at the critical stage of economic and social development thus we have every reason
to join hands for further cooperation of mutual benefits in the years to come,” Li said. He said for
Papua New Guinea to become a powerful and advanced nation in the Pacific, it needed more educated and skilled professionals. Through such programmes as the Chinese Government scholarships, it was achievable.


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It’s not often that anyone speaks highly of carbon, given the part that element plays in climate change. But a growing number of companies are eagerly promoting carbon in one specific form: It’s called graphene, and it is said to be the strongest, thinnest and most flexible material ever discovered.
First isolated by a British university in 2004, this so-called “wonder product” has sparked a multi-million dollar corporate scramble to exploit the breakthrough.
“This is akin to the invention of silicon or plastics,” says Jon Mabbit of Applied Graphene Materials (AGM), a small start-up in northeast England that has joined the great graphene rush. “This is a disruptive technology. It has the potential to revolutionize countless markets.”
One atom thick, the substance is so thin that it’s regarded as two-dimensional. And it has an impressive list of other properties: 100 times stronger than steel; far more flexible than rubber; the world’s best conductor of heat and electricity; almost totally transparent and yet completely impermeable. Among the uses touted: super-fast computer chips; cellphones you can roll up like a piece of paper and stuff into your pocket; and super-thin condoms.
But the graphene “prospectors” face some major hurdles.
“There’s an enormous leap between what you can do in the laboratory and having a product that is technologically ready,” says Valerie Jamieson of New Scientist magazine. “Graphene’s been stymied by the difficulty of making large sheets of the stuff. A tiny flaw can impair the product’s conductivity, making it useless in electronics.”
Jamieson is also concerned about cost. Graphene sheets cost $60 per square inch to produce but that needs to come down to $1 a square inch for use in computer chips, and 10 cents for touch screen displays. And there’s another, strategic worry: the vast bulk of the graphite from which graphene naturally derives would have to be mined in China.
But Mabbitt of AGM reckons that his company has cracked some of those problems. He and his colleagues have developed a method of synthesizing the substance out of cheap alcohol, so there is no need to dig it out of the ground at great expense. The company claims it can grow a ton of graphene a year with one relatively small piece of equipment. And they’re not turning out sheets for use in consumer electronics, so tiny flaws don’t matter. They aim to use their graphene as an additive to paints and lubricants.
“The impermeability of graphene makes it fantastic for stopping moisture attacking a ship’s hull,” says Mabbitt. “It also prevents sea-life from building up on the hull. So potentially you have a rust and barnacle-free vessel. That gives you a double whammy: low-maintenance and improved efficiency through water, which equates to fuel-saving.”
Graphene-coated aircraft – he says – would be both lighter and lightning proof. He believes the range of industrial applications for graphene is enormous. Not as sexy as roll-up cell phones and ultra-thin condoms, perhaps, but a wonder material nevertheless.
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